I suppose that my path to yoga begins with my mother, before I even knew that yoga existed. As a kid, I remember sneaking into her room to look through her colorfully illustrated book about a beautiful blue man that was often depicted playing the flute. I later came to learn that the book was the Bhagavad Gita, and that the blue man was Krishna. My mother was a hippie-child in the 60s, and in addition to her revolutionary spirit she also shared lots of stories, wisdom, and insight with me from her explorations of Eastern spirituality. But it wasn’t until I moved to New York City in the mid-90s that I discovered the physical practice of yoga. 

After graduating from Gonzaga University in 1994 with a degree in theater, I spent about six months in London working as an office temp and auditioning and acting in various fringe productions. In 1995, I made the big decision to move to New York to pursue acting. While on the one hand it was amazing to be following my heart, it was also very stressful! Acting classes and headshots were expensive, and no sooner then I’d find a decent job to pay the bills I’d have to quit that job in order to take a part in a show. So it seemed as if I was always looking for work and often in fear of how I was going to pay the rent. Looking for an antidote to the stress, I started spending time in the self-help section at Barnes & Noble, where I’d sit on the floor and read the books right there because I couldn’t afford to buy them. One day, I ventured a little beyond the self-help section and discovered a super small section of books under the category of “Yoga and Tai Chi.” There were only a handful of books there at the time, but one of them changed the course of my life completely.

Yoga: The Spirit and Practice of Moving into Stillness, by Erich Schiffmann, was the first book that I ever read about yoga. The words on those pages spoke to a long dormant aspect of my inner being. I resonated with everything Erich said, and knew that I’d just discovered my new path. I started asking everyone I knew if they’d heard about yoga. Remember, this was before the age of the Internet so I couldn’t just do a simple Google search. But eventually I found someone that practiced yoga, and she recommended the Integral Yoga Institute (IYI) on West 13th Street. I started taking classes there regularly and fell in love with the practice. I became a vegetarian, gave up smoking and drinking, and did my best to live a yogic lifestyle. I attended teacher training at the IYI in the Fall of 1998, and started teaching at the IYI in January of 1999. 

After graduating from IYI’s teacher training, I was hungry to learn more about yoga from different teachers so I started exploring other practices. I took classes at the Sivananda Institute, Jivamukti, the Iyengar Institute, and at OM Yoga Studio. I really resonated with the alignment-informed, slow-paced vinyasa style at OM Yoga (Cyndi Lee), and found myself practicing there more and more. I eventually enrolled in The Road to OM teacher training with Cyndi Lee and began teaching at OM Yoga in 2000. Shortly after that I traveled to the West Coast to attend a 2-week teacher training intensive with Erich Schiffmann, and it felt amazing to finally study with the teacher whose book so radically changed my life. 

In 2002, I enrolled in the Swedish Institute of Massage Therapy. While I was initially only interested in learning more about the body in order to become a better yoga teacher, I ended up completing the entire curriculum and become a licensed massage therapist in early 2006. It was during my massage studies at the Swedish Institute that I discovered a passion for the study of functional anatomy. Believing that you teach what you want to learn, I started offering a series of anatomy courses for my yoga teacher colleagues that eventually became known as “Anatomy Studies for Yoga Teachers (ASFYT).” I taught the series using a couple of fantastic books by Joseph Muscolino, entitled Kinesiology: The Skeletal System and Muscle Function and The Muscular System Manual. Both of these books went far beyond what I’d learned at the Swedish Institute, and teaching from them took my own knowledge of human movement to new heights. 

In 2008, I trademarked my own style of yoga called Zenyasa, which is essentially a slow-flow yoga practice that incorporates elements of Zen Buddhism, functional strength and conditioning, Tai Chi, and moderately paced vinyasa yoga. I opened the Zenyasa Yoga & Wellness Studio in 2010, where I and others offered Zenyasa classes, the ASFYT Series, Zenyasa teaching training programs, and therapeutic massage services. Sadly, we recently lost the lease on our little yoga haven, but I have plans to continue offering the ASFYT Series and Zenyasa programs in the months and years to come. In the meantime, I continue to offer private yoga and therapeutic massage services in upper Manhattan, Yonkers, lower Westchester, and at my home in Riverdale. The journey continues 

Learn more at jasonraybrown.com.